He passes the silhouettes, himself knee-deep in snow. They are a mess of arms and spaces shooting through the curtain and the glass. When he crosses the street, he sees two bundled figures arm in arm and hears the laughter spurting through their cotton masks.

Our traveller adjusts his own mask across his mouth and eyes, pulling the short plastic visor down across his brow. The wind is spitting snow into his eyes.

When he sits down in his favourite chair that night, his cellphone bleats loudly on the coffee table. He leaves the house twenty minutes later and arrives at the club ten minutes after that, his wallet is full of bills and change. When the night is over he’ll have enough money left for a cab and coffee. He walks from where the cab stopped, trudging through the rows of townhouses, snow biting at his shins. He sees a couple through their window lit up by the television and looks away before they see him. The drink will pass, and coffee is only hours away.